Yeah, I had to be completely immersed in Middle Earth in order to inhale the Silmarillion, but then again - that's what I do. It's why I love huge series like Dragaera, WoT, RotE - because I can just read more and more and more!!!

I don't know if I could have gotten through it as a stand-alone, but I read it after I'd finished the trilogy, and then after the Silmarillion I went on to the Lost Tales and all those other books (skipping all editor's notes from JRR's son lol).

Started a re-read of WoT in february, and I'm at book 12 now. So no 2 months for me....

I loved the first few books when I read them the first time (which must've been around 2000 or so), but books 7 to 10 bored me to death, because hardly anything was happening. So when 11 was released I decided to wait for 'the last book' (at that time RJ thought there would be only one more book) before I'd finish the series. And then the b*^*rd decided to die. One meter of books and no end! So when Brian Sanderson decided to take over I was glad that at least I'd get an end. But then I heard that there would be 3 more books, so I decided to wait longer. And longer. And I almost forgot the series existed, until I remembered early this year that I still hadn't bought book 14 yet. After ordering it, I started to re-read the entire series, which has been going on for several months now. I occasionally have weeks where I hardly read anything at all, and weeks where I finish one book in (almost) one go, and a few weeks ago I started the part that was new, although I have to admit that I had lost memory of a lot of plot details in the intermediate years. Books 7-10 weren't as slow as I had remembered (although it could've benefitted from tighter editing, RJ is no GRRM or RH when it comes to writing about details). RIght now I'm about 1/4th into book 12, and I like Sanderson's style so far.

I really love Sanderson as an author. I've read all of his other series/novels and am in love with his creativity and story-telling capability. I think he was stunted a bit in figuring out Mat for book 12, but eventually realized his mistake and did a splendid Mat (and all the other characters) for 13 & 14. It helps that Sanderson had been a huge huge fan of this series since he was a pre-teen.

I recommend his other stuff. Particularly the Stormlight Archive (my new favorite of his) and Mistborn (my old favorite of his lol).

“Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.” ~Patrick Rothfuss in The Name of the Wind